What went wrong?

[bullus]

I'm curious if I could bug the Literotica readers and veterans for some insight.

Someone told me that ratings aren't everything, seeing as how there are petty people out there who just rate stories bad for fun. But I have to ask where I screwed up here? The first chapter got a decent rating 3.94 out of 50 votes, but the second chapter tanked hard.

When you get a chance, please give them a read and let me know? I'm not asking for a rating, in fact, I'd prefer a response here over a comment or rating of the stories.

Webcam Diaries Ch.01 http://www.literotica.com/s/the-webcam-diaries-ch-01
Webcam Diaries Ch.02 http://www.literotica.com/s/the-webcam-diaries-ch-02

Thanks in advance, and please don't hesitate to tell me if the story idea, delivery or the whole thing sucks.

 

[nakdsub]

I didn't read the first part...

So maybe I'm off but you said it was the second part you were concerned about. To tell you the truth, it just jumps all around the place with no flow to it.
Maybe that was aggrevated by the fact that I didn't read the first part, but it still should flow better than it did.
I also found it boring. She nodded as she chewed.? Maybe a little emotion is needed.
You say they suffer from a hang over but there is noting about them having a hang over.
"She could hardly focus her eyes as she stumbled into the kitchen. Her head pounded with the rythm of a jungle drum.

 

[lost_in_you]

Just a couple of ideas from a novice writer...

I think you have a good idea behind the stories (I read both chapters) but the second seems considerably more disorganized than the first. It's hard enough keeping up with 3 people but you have them all over the place. First they're at the apt, then out shopping, wait one person is at work, wait they're back at their apt, and suddenly the one girl is at his apt? And we don't really know anything about them.

wait. now he's in love?

Also-as someone with her own assets, one thing gave me pause. I know guys view this thing very differently than chicas so I may be off base. If so, just brush it off as the n00b doesn't know her ass from a hole in the ground. At one point in ch.2 you referred to the one character's basketball sized assets. A few lines later when they were talking about going shopping for something sexy and the well-endowed Misty wonders if she'll find anything to fit, Sandy tells her "I'm sure they will, its not like you are some super rare size."

I'm sorry but something for basketball sized tatas is not something you find in every department store. And if you do, it's not usually sexy. It's more likely you'll be going to one specialty store in the city, if you're lucky.

In looking over your other stories, you had 'My Date with Heidi' that was short, fun and to the point but had more flow to it than these did. Going back to what I started with, I would imagine it had to do with being able to easily follow the characters and get a clean mental image.

Good luck. I hope this wasn't too rambly.

 

[PacoFear]

Howdy Bullus,

I read both chapters and I've got a few half-baked theories as to what happened. I set them out below in no particular order.

1. I agree with the previous posters; there are some flow issues on my read too. The preliminary scene-ettes were disconnected and probably unnecessary. Did we need to hear about the girls going shopping? Or how the girls and Mark arranged their next call? I suspect not. Consider leaping into their next vidchat session. Fill in the backstory with dialogue. ("Like my knew bra? Sandy I went shopping this afternoon. Tee-hee!")

2. There were a few awkward turns of phrase, e.g.:

This further disappointed her confidence in her attractiveness.

She felt a calm soothe take over with the sauna-like conditions.

Never one to be shy about anything, Sandy stood to her feet.

3. Your male lead lost some serious likability points when, shortly after he receives an enthusiastic bj from Sandy, he has these uncharitable thoughts:

Mark had always thought Sandy was cute, but he knew that relationship would be a waste of time. Sandy was a ditsy, party type...and Mark was really trying to make something of himself.

4. Your interesting hook (for me anyway) for chapter 1 was the novelty of your male lead watching a pair of roommates have sex via webcam. Kinda pervy. Easy to relate to. Alas, by operation of your plot, that hook evaporated in chapter 2.

5. You switched Lit categories from Ex/Voy to Erotic Couplings. The readership of different categories at Lit vote differently. The readers of some categories are more generous than others. I have no experience wit hthe Ex/Voy readership voting pattern. Perhaps someone else here can chime in?

Pick the reason(s) that make(s) the most sense to you, Bullus. Even better, ignore 'em all and write what you enjoy writing.

G'luck,

PF

 

[sr71plt]

Might add that your premise on how the two are doing in relationship to each other is a little shaky. A deviation in rating of only .27 doesn't really mean that one has a "decent" rating and the other "tanked hard." They're really pretty close together in rating.

 

[Darkniciad]

I'll add that the E&V category has a larger, and more generous readership than Erotic Couplings, as well.

EC is the catch-all category for damn near everything 1on1, so the readership is pretty transient.

When you hop categories in a multi-part story, you have to take the dynamics of the category into account. In this case, I would expect Ch. 01 to have more votes ( even more than the usual for a Ch. 01 ) and a higher score because of the category.

Balancing it all out, they probably have about equal scores, once you account for the category dynamics. On a quick skim of the story, I'd probably have put Ch. 02 into E&V as well. It seems to fit there just fine to me. When you can stay in one category, it always works out better than hopping categories.

One thing that's probably hurting you is the one page chapters. The sweet zone is 2-3 Lit pages. That's enough to get someone engrossed in the story, but not so much as to be daunting for reading in a single sitting. I would have combined the first two chapters into one.

 

[roomfor1more]

After having a quick read of both stories, I feel, the second story reads a bit rougher. By that I mean it does not flow, each sentence reads about the same length, and it is a very difficult story to read. My own feeling, if you used an editor to help you then it might have scored higher.

 

[amofiga]

I'm curious if I could bug the Literotica readers and veterans for some insight.

Someone told me that ratings aren't everything, seeing as how there are petty people out there who just rate stories bad for fun. But I have to ask where I screwed up here? The first chapter got a decent rating 3.94 out of 50 votes, but the second chapter tanked hard.

I did not read your stories, but I have some thoughts about the phenomenon of declining readership and different ratings for different chapters. I just ran into this with something I recently posted as a five-chapter story over the past couple of weeks. Each chapter dealt with various sexual adventures of an "incestuous" (by marriage, not blood) couple that went from simple one-on-one straight sex, through some watersport experimentation, to some BDSM experimentation, to swinging with another couple. The first chapter had significant readership and hot votes. The second chapter got fewer, the third (BDSM) actually irritated some people and I got some negative comments. The fourth irritated even more people because they couldn't understand how this "loving couple" could get involved with such a sleazy couple for sexual swapping. I had to laugh because I couldn't believe how people could seem to take this type of "semi porn", just-for-fun fiction so seriously.

So my theory was, I captured some readers in the "Incest/Taboo" section but they were essentially disappointed with the first chapter when they learned that it was an uncle and "niece-in-law" and not a true incestuous blood uncle and niece. Therefore, many jumpted ship after chapter 1. Many sent me good comments about chapter 2 because of the openess and experimentation between the two, but got totally turned off with chapter 3 because BDSM tends to turn off a lot of straight people. By chapter 4, I was getting some angry comments because the male lead, who sincerely cared for his "niece", allowed her to have sex with a guy who was a "prick" and an "asshole". I was told that, "In real life, nobody in his right mind would let someone he truly cared for to be used by such a prick and asshole." So.....this isn't real life.

Some folks who stuck through chapter 5 said it was one of the best stories they've read. However, it was about half the number of readers of Chapter 1. I appreciated them and their comments.

So the lesson from Abraham Lincoln is, "you can please some of the people all of the time, all of the people some of the time, but never all of the people all of the time."

Do your best, enjoy what you do, have fun, ignore those who don't like it.

 

[bullus]

Might add that your premise on how the two are doing in relationship to each other is a little shaky. A deviation in rating of only .27 doesn't really mean that one has a "decent" rating and the other "tanked hard." They're really pretty close together in rating.

When I had posted the thread, the margin was over an entire percent difference, someone must have voted it better.






Thank you all for your words, I do see what everyone is saying about the flow of the story. My intent was to make a fast track to the good stuff, but the delivery (as I see now) was all wrong.